I became interested in medieval tiles after visiting Winchester Cathedral, where a section of the original medieval tiled floor has been relocated into a smaller area of floorspace. Appealingly mis-matched and higgledy-piggledy, the original tiles were well-worn and uneven, yet slightly glittery where remnants of glaze remained. In the Victorian era, these tiles were brutally removed, quite literally destroyed with pickaxes to make way for new replica tiled floors. Seeing what remained, and understanding what had been lost, made them seem, to me, to be one of the best parts of the cathedral, holding memory and history. I began to think of them as a form of memorial; one image that communicates and commemorates whatever it represents.

Medieval tile making is a little-known process, as there are no recorded techniques that have survived. After playing around with encaustic tile-making I have devised a making method through research, observation, and a fair amount of trial and error. I have simplified a process, which is the technique I now teach in the workshops I run at Kift.

The first workshop I offered was for the Frome Festival in 2025, which I thought would be a niche place to test the delivery. To my surprise it has since become the most popular workshop I run. In the workshop we use modern tools to recreate this medieval process, resulting in hand made encaustic tiles that connect past and present through making.

Medieval Tile Making courses are available to book here.

Images shown are both courtesy of the artist, all rights reserved, 2026.